Madam Speaker, the Department of Canadian Heritage investigated Telefilm Canada in 2007. No action was taken following the investigation's report, and absolutely nothing was done about its findings, which have never been made public.
I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage if the government could release the findings of the investigation into Telefilm Canada. The minister replied that Telefilm Canada has since changed how it operates. I believe him. Indeed, I think Telefilm has seen some major changes. That is why I am talking about Telefilm at that time. The minister told me that the report I was referring to was in the government's hands and that they were taking the necessary steps to look after taxpayers' needs.
I have no problem with that. I understand the minister plans to table the report's findings. I would like to know when. When will the minister table the findings of that report?
However, new facts were brought to light recently. For example, we recently learned that in 2002 the President of Telefilm, Charles Bélanger, decided on his own initiative to pay thousands of dollars in grants to Cinar, which was accused and recently found guilty of infringing Claude Robinson's copyright. We realize that the matter is currently being appealed. Nevertheless, the company was found guilty.
In 2002, Charles Bélanger, president of Telefilm Canada, decided on his own initiative to pay thousands of dollars in grants to Cinar, which was in hot water at the time. Cinar was accused of fraud and of using fictitious authors to obtain government grants, which it then used improperly.
What is troubling in this affair is that, at that time, Charles Bélanger's spouse co-owned Teletoon with Cinar.
Given the new information revealed since Cinar's recent admissions—and accusations—why is the government not reopening the Cinar inquiry? Why is it refusing to shed light on the matter? Why is it not making the information behind all of these inquiries public? Why has it not launched an inquiry into the inquiry? Why was this inquiry halted halfway? Who shut down this inquiry so that nobody would find out the truth, so the facts would never come out? Who did that, and why?
This is quite disturbing. This matter has always been disturbing. It tainted the previous government, the Liberal government, which was in power when the inquiry was halted. Now the Conservative government is trying to cover something up, or seems to be covering for someone or something or some situation that does not look good.
That was the question we had at the time. Who is the government trying to cover for? And in addition to finding out who the government was trying to cover for, we want to know why the government is not being transparent and why it is not giving us all the facts about the inquiry. Why is it not making the results of the inquiry public, and why is it not holding an inquiry into the inquiry to find out why the Liberal government at the time halted it?